Tuesday, February 19, 2013

This past year, my co-founder Jesse Clark and I have pitched
Corengi to a number of investor audiences.One of the most rewarding, however, was our participation in the Seattle
Angel Conference – where we were selected as one of the six finalists. (It should
also be pointed out that SAC made the obviously foolish decision to select Exo
Labs – and not Corengi - as the recipient of their $100K investment.)

What we
found so rewarding is:

1)First off, there is a large amount of quality
interactions with angel investors.After
our initial application, we were selected as one of the 21 semi-finalists.During the pitches at this stage, we met and
exchanged contact information with about ten of the investors participating.After we were selected as finalists, there
was a social event that involved all of the 20+ investors and all the finalist
companies.There was a focus on driving
meaningful interactions between the startups and the potential investors.

2)Secondly, we learned a tremendous amount during
the due diligence.Corengi was paired
with Ammen Jordan and Brad Carpenter.These two individuals really challenged our ideas and our business.Over a three-week period, we met with these
individuals three different times and had a number of other phone calls and
email threads.Blunt feedback let us
understand what investors did and did not like about our business.(Thanks Alex!)These made us re-consider working
assumptions, improve our story, and be smarter about where we wanted to take
our business.

3)Finally, the actual structure of the event was
well done.There were 10 minutes for
each pitch, followed by a five-minute Q&A led by one of the investors.I left the event completely impressed by the
quality and the variety of the other companies presenting.

I think its impressive what John Sechrest, Scott Wigton, and
the rest of the folks at SAC have done over the past year.

They’re doing everything they can to drive
more angel investment in the area.